The Sixth International Charlotte Perkins Gilman Conference will take place in June 2015 at the Schlesinger Library at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Schlesinger holds a rich collection of Gilman’s papers, including letters and drawings, as well as the entire run of her periodical,The Forerunner. A selection of Gilman-related materials will be on exhibition as part of the conference.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman, a descendent of the prominent New England Beecher family, was an author, journalist, editor, and lecturer. While she is best known for her story, “The Yellow Wall-Paper,” and her book, Women and Economics, Gilman published more than a dozen books and edited her own periodical. Over the course of her prolific career, she helped to shape the cultural conversation on a range of issues, including feminism, socialism, birth control, eugenics, interior design, and animal rights. Her biography, which involved the infamous “rest cure,” divorce, and suicide, also invites us to consider the available life narratives for public women at the fin-de-siecle.